


Tell Me I'm Pretty

by walkydeads



Series: Thirty Minutes or Less: The Delivery Boy Chronicles of Glenn Rhee [3]
Category: Walking Dead, Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Coming Out to Family, Kind of Unsatisfying M-Rated Material, M/M, Merle being a jerk as usual, Mutual Masturbation, Pizza Delivery Boy Glenn Rhee, Sexting, UST, pizza boy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 05:08:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2297684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkydeads/pseuds/walkydeads
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Glenn gets a couple of orders where he has to tell people they're pretty, has to help his sister move, and in between gets some interesting texts from Daryl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Me I'm Pretty

Glenn sighs, almost laughs as he pulls the order up and adds it to his list. The funny thing is, this isn’t even the first ‘Tell me I’m pretty,’ order he’s gotten today. Both of the orders have been placed under men’s names, too. But at least with Merle, he knows what he’s getting. And the Dixons are his last delivery for the day, so no matter what happens with his first delivery, he’ll at least get the consolation of seeing Daryl afterwards. Probably. Hopefully.

It’s actually kind of a relief to get an order from the Dixons, to be honest. In the past three weeks, they’d only placed an order with Domino’s once, and even then Merle took the pizza begrudgingly and all but slammed the door in his face. Glenn was unsure if he had done something wrong or somehow offended them after they had him over for beer and football that one time. Daryl had barely texted him, and he was afraid of sending too many texts himself and creeping the elder man out, so he forced himself not to. But this time, he has to figure it out. He promises himself as he loads up his orders that he’ll be brave.

As he pulls up to the first house, by the mailbox marked ‘Grimes,’ he’s set a little on edge by the patrol car in the drive, but he doesn’t really pay it any mind. Cops tend to be less confrontational off-duty. Especially if they’re hungry and you have food for them. The house is nice, in a tucked away neighborhood blocks from the town’s big Catholic church. It’s built in a modern style and the yard is well maintained. And yet, somehow, he feels less safe here than he does in the Dixons’ neighborhood.

He rings the doorbell and waits. There’s running around in the house, the laughter of a child. After a few moments, a woman answers the door, smiling as she runs a hand over her pregnant belly. “Hey, pizza? I didn’t…”

Officer Friendly, as Glenn has come to think of him, rounds a corner and gives Glenn a nod, kissing the woman on the cheek. “Figured you were tired,” He said, “So I went ahead and ordered us a little something.”

Glenn takes the pizzas out of their bag in the meantime and blushes as he hands them over, “Alright, there you go. Thirty-two sixteen, please.”

“Don’t have a discount for law enforcement?” the man says, smiling in a teasing way. His wife gives him a peck on the cheek and takes the pizzas, turning and calling someone named Carl to get dinner plates and set the table. She gives Glenn a smile as she turns and heads for the kitchen.

After a few seconds of hesitation, Glenn calls, “You look very pretty!” after her.

She turns back again and gives him a real smile this time, her cheeks going pink and delighted laughter escaping, “You’ve got some nerve, saying that right in front of my husband!”

Glenn can only shrug as her husband laughs.

After the man gets his laughter under control, he digs his wallet out of his back pocket, “You did good, kid,” he praised, handing Glenn two twenties, “Just keep the change. I’m sorry about my partner, by the way. He’s a little overzealous, but he means well. I know you don’t deal and I know Daryl’s trying to rehabilitate his brother.” 

Glenn shrugs, “I appreciate the apology, but that was weeks ago. I’m honestly surprised you even remembered.”

The man slumps against the doorframe slightly, offering a shrug of his own, “I make stops at the Dixon house a few times a month. I don’t see a lot of people there besides you and that Italian kid from the Chinese resturaunt. So I remember you. And I remember how they defended you, even Merle did. I know it’s weird but stuff like that shows me he’s not as bad as he pretends to be. He’s in a rough spot. Sometimes those things take a gentle approach and I don’t think Shane gets that yet. He’s still kinda new to the force.”

“Really?” Glenn asks, feigning interest, “What did he do before?”

“He was a gym teacher at a high school. Didn’t work for him. He was too… invested in making the kids get into shape. Yelled at them a lot.”

Glenn grimaces, “I can imagine… those poor kids.”

“You can call me Rick, by the way. When I’m not on the job at least. Rick Grimes,” The man - Rick - extends a hand and Glenn shakes it firmly, a little confused by the guy’s friendliness.

“Glenn Rhee.”

After awkward ‘see you around’s, Glenn climbs back into his car, making two more deliveries before finally stopping at the Dixon house. He almost doesn’t recognize it at first; the confederate flag hung on the front porch was gone, replaced with a pirate flag. The house had also recently gotten a new coat of gray paint, and the blackness of the porch combined with the soft gray paint on the house made the house look modern, even better than some of the other houses in the neighborhood. The lawn was newly mowed as well.

Making his way up the walk, Glenn worries that they don’t even live there anymore, despite recognizing Merle’s truck in the drive. His feet no longer stick to the porch as he walks to the door and rings the bell. “I’m comin’!” Daryl shouts from somewhere deep in the house - while Glenn bitterly thinks ‘I wish’ - opening the door a second later.

“Aw, Christ,” Daryl grumbles. Glenn is, admittedly, thinking the same thing, but for probably very different reasons.

Daryl’s shirtless, which is a disturbing trend, again wearing unbuttoned jeans over nondescript underwear. His hair is damp and there’s a towel around his shoulders and Glenn is honestly surprised his drool hasn’t dripped onto the porch yet.

“How much?” Daryl sighs, “Lemme go get my wallet.”

“Wait!” Glenn halts him, unsure of why as he’s faced with Daryl’s back. Daryl turns around and raises an eyebrow expectantly. It’s Glenn’s turn to go red in the face - supposing he somehow already isn’t - and he casts his eyes to the ground, “You… um… you look very nice today.”

“You ain’t getting a tip,” Merle bellows from somewhere in the house, “Paraphrasing!”

Glenn looks up, a smile already on his lips, hoping he and Daryl will just laugh this off, and maybe Daryl will invite him over for another beer. But, surprisingly, Daryl looks pissed. And maybe a little hurt. For some reason, that just pisses Glenn off. This guy ignores him for weeks and then gets irritated at him for a little joke his brother had obligated him to make? His smile falls into a scowl and he looks Daryl in the eye as he says, “Pretty, then.”

Daryl’s eyes flicker down and his mouth twitches. He’s trying really hard to keep scowling, but Glenn figures he’s probably just desperately covering to keep from showing his embarrassment. “Oh,” is all he says, though, his voice sounding so soft and wounded that it immediately makes Glenn feel bad.

“I mean,” he scrambles, trying to make up for whatever he did to hurt the older man, “You do look good. You always look good. Even if your brother doesn’t make me say it, I still think you’re… um. A great looking guy, and. He put ‘pretty’ so I just… I didn’t want to offend you by saying it that way, you know? I would think… I would think you look nice regardless. Because you do.”

“Oh,” Daryl said again, although this time the tone was lighter.

Merle appeared then, grabbing the pizza boxes from Glenn, “Well ain’t that sweet,” he crooned, “But some of us are fuckin’ hungry.”

“I didn’t pay yet, Merle,” Daryl hissed, punching his brother in the arm.

Laughing around a slice of pepperoni, Merle punches Daryl back, “Well, tip him good. I couldn’t have scripted that shit myself. It was beautiful. I almost shed a tear.”

“Shut up,” Glenn and Daryl say at the same time, sparing one another a glance before turning their glares on him.

Defeated, Merle raises the pizza boxes in mock surrender and backs out of the foyer. There are a few seconds of awkward silence before Daryl seems to remember he hasn’t payed yet. He grabs his wallet, “Okay, how much was it?”

“Twenty-three eighty-four.”

Daryl hands him forty. “You want to come back by after your shift?”

Glenn blinks at him, a little surprised that Daryl still wants to be around him after an outburst like that. “I want to,” he says, “But I don’t think I can. I’m helping my sister move tomorrow and she wants to get started and be done before lunch, so. I’m kind of pushing things with that as it is. I have to drive back out to Macon and. Well. It’s kind of a pain in the ass, honestly. But she’s family, so what can I do?”

“Trust me,” Daryl says lowly, “I know exactly what you mean.”

“I resemble that remark!” Merle laughs from (presumably the couch) and Daryl rolls his eyes, leaning against the door.

“You just taking tomorrow off?” he asks, curious.

Glenn nods, “It’s not far and I actually want to spend as little time around my sister’s boyfriend as possible. He’s a doctor and my parents think he’s perfect. Too busy performing open heart surgery to help her move. And he considers himself an authority on what I should be doing with my life. Basically, he’s the son my parents wanted.”

Shuffling his feet, Daryl hums noncommittally and Glenn realizes he’s probably boring the older man with his complaints, “That sounds like it sucks. Parents never expected much out of me or Merle. At least we know we ain’t gotta live up to some bullshit expectations, though.”

Unsure of what to say, Glenn just nods before awkwardly taking a step back, “Your house looks nice,” he says, “I didn’t really get to mention that, but. The paint is nice, and everything. It’s kind of cool how my feet don’t stick to your porch anymore.”

“Thanks,” Daryl smiles, and Glenn feels his heart doing flips in his chest, “Put a lot of work in. Finally got Merle to take that stupid goddamn confederate flag down. Believe it or not, that was my biggest challenge. I’m trying to learn about landscaping on YouTube; I want our home to be something we can be proud of.”

Glenn takes a moment to pretend that by ‘our’ home, Daryl means the two of them before softly saying, “I’m sure it will be.”

After that, though Glenn doesn’t particularly want to, he says goodbye. As he walks down the steps, he turns around and calls, “Text me!” to which Daryl simply nods before shutting the door. And well, that - as things always seemed to be at the Dixon house - was strange and surreal, but even so, he felt a lot better than he had before. Maybe it was just seeing Daryl. Maybe it was taking a step in the right direction towards mending whatever had gone wrong in their friendship.

But maybe, just maybe, it was the fact that he had told Daryl he thought he was hot, and Daryl hadn’t immediately punched him for it.

As he went about his day, he wasn’t really expecting Daryl to text him. At least not that night. But just as he had finished helping lock up the store, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. ‘Just wanted to make sure you got home ok’ was all it said, but it made Glenn grin to the point of embarrassment. 

“Glenn’s got a girlfriend,” the store manager, Theo (who asks Glenn to call him T-Dog for some reason) croons at him as they make their way to their cars. Glenn just blushes and shakes his head as he quickly texts back ‘heading home now’. T-Dog probably actually knows that Glenn’s into dudes too, but as a part-time youth pastor, it’s probably easier for him to gloss over it than acknowledge it. The smile T-Dog gives him, though, is enough to make him think that, if it came down to it, the man would be supportive regardless.

The ride home is quick and silent, Glenn’s thigh jumping excitedly the whole way. To Daryl’s credit, he doesn’t text Glenn while he think’s he’s driving. Before Glenn’s even got the key in the lock of his apartment, he’s texting Daryl to let him know he’s home. He knows he needs to sleep but part of him hopes that he’ll be able to talk to this guy for a while. As he’s grabbing a beer, his phone buzzes on the coffee table.

‘It was good to see you today :)’ the message says. Glenn smiles again.

‘You, too’.

He turns on the TV, figuring he can at least get in an episode of Futurama or something before he has to shower before bed. It’s an episode he’s seen at least a million times before, but at least it’s not one of the sad ones, like the ones about Fry’s brother or his dog. Every few seconds, he spares his phone a glance, a little ashamed of how desperate he is for Daryl to text him back. When his phone finally buzzes again, he stares at it until a commercial break before actually looking at the message.

‘What are you doing?’ Glenn feels his stomach flip at that, unsure of why. It’s kind of a weird question to ask, given that he already knows Glenn’s plans, so he must be asking it for a reason. ‘Just watching tv having a beer before bed. You?’ he answers, his finger hesitating over the send button for a few seconds before he hits it. 

‘Getting ready for bed myself. I wanna ask you something.’

Gulping, Glenn responds ‘Shoot.’ before swallowing the rest of his beer and throwing the bottle in his recycling bin. The episode of Futurama goes off. It’s followed up by Tosh.0, which he has no particular interest in watching, so he turns his TV off, going back to his room and stripping down to his boxers. As he’s pulling on an old band t-shirt, his phone nearly vibrates off the dresser. He catches it and mentally pats himself on the back for his quick reflexes.

‘Sorry if this is weird. But do you really think I’m good looking?’ He takes a second to process this. Daryl wants to know if Glenn thinks he’s hot. Like for real. Not just saying it to make him feel better or because Merle told him to. Why would he want to know that? Just to boost his ego? To prove a point to his brother? It’s hard to say. Glenn’s hard-pressed to find an excuse to be anything less than honest, so he types back, ‘Yeah, honestly. Does that surprise you?’

The response is almost instantaneous ‘It does surprise me. It also makes me happy. I think you’re good looking to ;)’ and is then immediately followed by ‘*too’.

And yeah, okay, this has got to be a joke, because there’s no way Daryl could think he’s hot. Yeah, sure, he could acknowledge that Glenn was in possession of some attractive traits, he thought, but this was different. There’s a difference between a guy telling another guy he’s attractive to bolster his self-esteem and telling another guy you think he’s hot because you want to bone him. That difference is usually in the details, and a winky face is one big, stupid detail. Glenn feels somewhere between hopeful that this is for real and upset that he’s being mocked when his phone goes off again.

‘Sorry if that made things weird, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.’

Glenn feels all melty inside again. His defenses drop and he throws himself down on his bed, grinning at his phone like an idiot. ‘It’s not weird, I’m happy the feeling is mutual,’ he types before setting an alarm and sliding under the covers. 

‘Good,’ Daryl replies a minute or so later, the phone lighting up in Glenn’s face jolting him out of sleep, ‘I’ve never really been with a guy before. Thought about it, though. And I’m pretty sure I like you, not to make things weird or anything. That time you came over and watched the game with us I really wanted to kiss you or something.’

Glenn grins and gnaws at his lip. Part of him wants to be skeptical and cautious but the other part of him just wants to revel in the feeling of someone paying attention to him. He rolls onto his back and types, ‘I hope you’re serious’.

Before he’s able to hit send, though, he gets another text, ‘I’m sorry again if I’ve said too much, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable around me.’

He adds to the message so it reads ‘I hope you’re serious because I wanted to kiss you too’ before sending. Then he closes his eyes, his heart beating too fast to sleep but knowing he needs to. The light of his phone flashes against his eyelids and he takes a second to open them again. The reply reads ‘What else would you want to do?’

Treacherously, Glenn’s cock jumps at the implication of the text and his legs open a bit. A little embarrassed that it takes so little to get him going, he slides a hand under the covers and strokes himself slowly, gently over his underwear. After a moment of nervousness - and figuring out how to type with one hand - he types back, ‘Pretty much anything, to be honest.’

Closing his eyes and inhaling deeply through his nose, Glenn hopes desperately that he isn’t being made a fool of. He hasn’t seen women - or much of anyone - around the Dixons. That wasn’t exactly telling, though. Not many people would be able to put up with Merle and his antics for long. But then, there is Daryl’s penchant for answering the door shirtless and usually damp, even though he knows Glenn is the person on the other side of the door. And the way he seemed to scoot closer to Glenn as they sat on the couch that night.

‘I wanna touch you’ is what his phone lights up with a few moments later, and Glenn grips his cock and squeezes, eliciting a low groan from himself.

‘I want you to touch me,’ he replies, ‘a lot. Like you have no idea. Just thinking about it is making me crazy.’

‘Crazy enough to touch yourself?’

Glenn laughs as he types back, ‘Way ahead of you.’

Daryl replies within a few seconds, ‘Good. I probably won’t be able to text back for a while. I’m gonna be busy thinking of what I should’ve done weeks ago.’

Groaning, Glenn tips his head back, spreading his legs a bit more, propping his feet on the bed as he slides his hand into his underwear. It’s a bit cold against his warm, hot cock, and he shivers at the sensation, but immediately starts stroking himself just the same. Bucking into his own fist, it takes him an embarrassingly short amount of time to cum, spilling into his boxers and panting as he comes down, his legs giving up and sliding back down along the bed as he tries to catch his breath.

He gets up to change underwear and clean his hand, even more tired than before. As he flops down on the bed, he means to write some sort of flirty goodnight text, but his eyes slide closed before he can even pull up the texts.

The alarm pulls Glenn out of his sleep a few hours later. He’s a little disappointed to see that he hasn’t gotten any new texts, but he lets it slide. Daryl probably fell asleep too. He goes through his morning routine, taking a shower, brushing his teeth and getting into some comfortable clothes before hitting the road. Strictly speaking, he’s running a little late, but that probably won’t surprise his parents or his sister, Gwen.

She’s moving into her own apartment after something of a nasty breakup. Glenn doesn’t prod her for details and she doesn’t provide any. It’s probably just as well. He can’t begin to tell her how to get through this. Weirdly, she seems optimistic about everything.

Picking her things up from their parents’ house is awkward. His parents speak to him and are nice, and his father presses a twenty into his hand for gas, even though Gwen already agreed to pay him for his trouble. But there’s the lingering disappointment around them that he’d felt ever since he told them he was dropping out of college.

At least they had Gwen. She was in her second year of med school and somehow found time to teach Zumba and painting classes at the rec center. He didn’t really get how she survived making the commute from Macon to Savannah every day, but in a way he respected her ambition. At least she seemed to wanted to do something with her life.

She doesn’t have much, having downsized when she moved back in with their parents, so it doesn’t take them long to load up the moving truck and square everything away. They eat pizza (ordered from Pizza Hut, not Domino’s) on the floor of her new apartment around the coffee table. Aside from asking what goes where and how to maneuver the bigger stuff like the couch and the dining room table, they haven’t spoken much. It’s not really a deviation from how life was when they lived together, but it still feels kind of awkward.

“You seem… different,” Gwen tells him at last, chewing on her last slice of pepperoni, “Do you have a girlfriend or something?”

He smiles at her half-heartedly, “Or something.”

“Oh,” she takes a sip of Coke directly from the 2 liter bottle they’re sharing, “A boyfriend then? That’s cool.”

For a second, he considers correcting her. Daryl isn’t exactly his boyfriend. In fact, he’s not totally sure what having sort of sex via text messages one time makes them, especially since they haven’t spoken since. But he realizes she’ll start grilling him if he gets to specific, so instead he just nods, “Don’t tell umma and appa. Please.”

She snorts at him, “As if. I’m too busy to rat you out, I barely have time to talk to them these days, no time. I’m gonna be so behind on homework after all this. But it needed to be done. Anyway, I’m happy for you, you know. If it’s serious, I think you should tell them eventually. It’d be nice for them to know you have something going on. They worry about you.”

“I’m fine,” he says gruffly, not wanting to talk about it.

“I know you are, but umma and appa… they worry. They think, especially for people like us, that there’s only one way to be happy and successful. You’re going to hit your stride though, I know it. They might be so happy that you’ve taken the initiative to meet someone that they won’t care if he’s a guy.”

Glenn thinks about it for a minute. Gwen doesn’t grill him for details about his new beau and he’s relieved. He knows the truth of Daryl’s home life would probably be discouraging and he doesn’t care in reality, but something about his sister’s prolific dating history with rich, important men would make him feel like he had to lie in order to match up.

The silence is broken when Gwen’s phone goes off, signalling her regimented schedule. They head back to Macon, dropping off the uhaul truck and going back to their parents’ house. Glenn’s umma loads him up with tupperware containers brimming with kimchi, beansprout soup and various sidedishes, and tells him to come home again soon. Everyone present knows that’s probably not going to happen, but he presses a kiss to her cheek and promises to anyway. His father gets his passenger side door for him so he can load the leftovers and awkwardly pats him on the back.

At a red light just outside of town, Glenn checks his phone for the first time all day. There’s a new message from Daryl that simply says, ‘I’m sorry if I came off as creepy yesterday.’

Glenn writes back ‘You didn’t :)’. He’d like to say how much he’d enjoyed last night, as a matter of fact, but he figures texting won’t do him justice. The next time they talk like that, he wants it to be in person.


End file.
